


Operation Big Brother

by iimpavid, It_MightBe_Love



Series: the batmom multiverse [7]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, American Sign Language, Deaf Character, Found Family, Gen, Hashbrowns, Jewish Characters, Kidfic, Philanthropy, wholesome content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28408320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/It_MightBe_Love/pseuds/It_MightBe_Love
Summary: Stella’s text comes through mid-morning: wakey wakeyThen: hey pretty boyAnd finally, theres a kid on ur corner
Series: the batmom multiverse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1045682
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Operation Big Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, okay, okay, I think this is the last snippet we've been hoarding from this multiverse. We should be all caught up now.

The Annual Adler Foundation Charity Auction and Ball is one of the few events wherein April can be reliably charming, funny, and genuinely nice, to put it simply, she adores heading the foundation which bears her grandmother’s name.    
  
Ephraim spends the weeks leading up to it trying to ascertain if it’s weird to invite the Red Hood (though at this point both Millers are aware he’s Jason Todd, the kid isn’t subtle, and coming from Ephraim that says something). The Hood (or Jason rather), has only been privy to maybe a dozen dinners over the previous two months but Ephraim is really terribly smart. He knows his mom has a soft spot for the vigilante that’s proportionately the size of Jupiter. Ephraim can’t blame her. He’s already drawn up paperwork declaring the guy his official brother.   
  
Eph just has to talk mom around to agreeing to it. Considering he caught her last week knitting a probably gargantuan sweater, he’s pretty sure Operation Big Brother is in the bag.   
  
So he sneaks an invite from mom’s home office and when he turns up on the street corner he’s come to understand functions rather like the Hood’s “office”, sans Geoff, he strikes a pretty conspicuous figure. Ephraim is small for his age, he’s holding out hope for a glow-up though. Right now he’s this side of the size of a box of cracker jacks, his eyes and ears are too big for his head, his neck is too long, his legs too short, and he has primate levels of knuckle dragging happening in terms of his arms. In short, Ephraim kind of looks like someone let Aunt Ursula loose with photoshop and too many build-a-kid psd’s.    
  
He’s got his mom’s eerie green eyes, curly blond hair, and good teeth though, so he’s holding onto that slim bit of hope he won’t always be tragic looking.    
  
The invitation is printed on expensive cardstock he knows comes from a recycling plant in like Uruguay that employs moms and kids. It’s an Adler Foundation business and he knows they make a killing because mom always looks unbearably smug when she gets invitations to events on the cardstock. These ones are pretty simple but the font is super fancy. He recognizes Geoff’s typeface work from a year ago and hopes he doesn’t get laughed off the corner for wanting Jason there.   
  
There aren’t very many people who treat Ephraim like a functioning person and not some defective runt. He knows he talks weird when he bothers to at all, that basically no one knows ASL and that it’s probably weird letting Geoff do the translating for him, that he’s kind of scrawny and unfortunate looking for a kid whose mom has been listed as Vanity Fair’s most eligible multi-millionaire heiress and philanthropist. (Ephraim doesn’t think about the fact that the world thinks his mom is hot. It’s weird. She’s MOM).   
  
Jason is nice, and knows ASL, and most importantly, he seems to like Ephraim. Geoff’s been Ephraim’s friend since they were little and some kids at the playground stole his hearing aid and then tried to tie him to the jungle gym. Geoff, who's always been big for his age, took a brick to one of the kids. Mom found them before too much trauma had been done.    
  
They’d still been in New York at the time, after that Geoff had become a pretty permanent fixture of the Miller house. His dad was nice enough, but the loss of his wife had ‘pretty much ruined him’— Ephraim doesn’t get that, but he figures when he’s grown up he might.   
  
He scuffs one sneaker on the concrete and tucks his peacoat more securely around himself to ward off the frigid January Gotham morning and tries not to crinkle the invitation.    
  
He _really_ wants Jason to come. He made him a friendship bracelet with No. 1 Big Brother on it. If Jason agrees to come to the charity thing, Ephraim knows he’s secured himself a big brother, and someone who mom can maybe have conversations with about her boring book things.    
  
Maybe mom will finally come out and tell Jason she turned one of the extra rooms at the penthouse into a bedroom for him.    
  
They’re Millers- they both sort of need keepers.

* * *

Stella’s text comes through mid-morning:  _ wakey wakey  _

Then: _hey pretty boy_

And finally, _theres a kid on ur corner_

His text tone has been replaced with the sound of a bullhorn— he blames Tim, evidence can be forged later—but mercifully not the volume but it wakes Jason out of a dead sleep nonetheless. 

_ a kidkid not a working kid _

Then a picture message, taken from two blocks up where Stella set up her pitch. He can see the back of Ephraim Miller’s head over his peacoat and really that’s enough to identify him. 

_ sum1s gonna mug him for that coat _

Jason scrubs his face violently— winces because he forgot about the undoubtedly colorful shiner he’d scored last night— and texts her back one-handed,  _ buy him hot chocolate or st @ bernies. b there in 15 _

He shuffles into clothes that are moderately clean with the grace of semi-conscious habit. The “still wearable” pile that has accumulated in the bottom of his closet needs to be culled sometime soon but that would involve dragging the mess out where it could be seen.

His phone blares again.  _ srsly? u think im made of money?  _

_ ill pay u when i get there _

He makes it to the corner of Second and Vine in ten minutes. Sidewalks are for losers who don’t parkour for a living. 

He drops from a fire escape into the back alley of Bernie’s, lets himself in through the kitchen to steal a plate of hash browns and slides into the booth where Stella’s dutifully babysitting. She looks about as pleased as she ever is to see him, which is to say not at all. The pleather skirt and fishnets probably chafe; he wouldn’t be thrilled having to walk around or slide into a diner booth or really do anything in those either. 

He drops a hundred dollar bill into her empty coffee cup— it cheers her up some. “Huh. Well that’s the easiest c-note I ever made.” 

“That’s what I’m here for,” he winks at her. 

She rolls her eyes. Shoves the bill into her shoe. Slides her way as gracefully as one can in pleather to the edge of the booth then points to Jason and tells Ephraim, “You stay away from this guy, he’s bad news for a kid like you.”

“See, don’t tell ‘im  _ that _ , Stella, he’s 12 he’s gonna do exactly what you don’t want him to. You gotta use reverse psychology.”

“Yeah, alright, Freud," she says it with a long _o_ , like _Frood_ , "whatever. I’m gettin’ outta here— some of us have real jobs.” 

“Love you, too, Stella!” Jason stretches his legs out under the table to rest them on the opposite bench. He signs to Ephraim,  _ So, Einstein where’s your evil twin? Your mom know you’re playing hookey? _

Ephraim's never met a hooker. Stella is nice, she doesn't sign, but she's friendly enough and she obviously knows Jason since she pretty much strong armed him into going to a diner. He pays for the hot cocoa himself, and buys her a cup of coffee. Like his mom would send him out without cash on hand. (Small bills, ones and fives mostly because people notice in Gotham if you carry anything bigger than a twenty. Nevermind he's probably got about two hundred dollars on him anyway.)

They sit in silence, probably awkward for the girl in the mini skirt, while they wait for Jason to arrive. When he slides into the booth, Ephraim cranks the volume on his hearing aid all the way up. Jason talks in just the right range for Ephraim to hear him pretty clearly, the girl's voice is a faint buzz. 

He grins,  _ Geoff'll be ecstatic to hear he's my evil twin. It's Parent-Teacher Conferences. Mom is storming the castle probably putting the fear of God into the faculty. They keep pushing her to enroll me in speech therapy.  _

Ephraim rolls his eyes and kicks his feet back and forth. They're weirdly contrary actions, but he's pleased as punch that he's getting cocoa and conversation with someone not Geoff, and not mom. Not that he doesn't love them, but Ephraim's a people person in a way neither of them are. One day he's going to invent something that'll give him full range hearing back in his good ear. He's gonna market it through the Adler Foundation, give other hearing impaired people a nonsurgical option to return some of their hearing if they want it. No more holes getting drilled into heads.

At the moment, he makes do with what he can figure out from mad science, the three medical journals he subscribes to under mom's university credentials, and harassing his doctor whenever he goes in for check ups. 

He sips his cocoa and then nervously hands the invitation over to Jason. 

_ You should come. You’ll get to meet mom’s family. Most of them suck, but mom takes a lot of glee in making grandmother apoplectic _ . 

Jason’s favorite thing about ASL, hands down, is that he never has to actually worry about talking with his mouth full. Bernie’s hashbrowns have the best ratio of crunch to delicious, butter-saturated potato insides and eating them while they’re still piping hot is a priority. He nods in affirmation; Dr. Miller would indeed be terrifying at a parent-teacher conference. 

The invitation sits on the table for a solid five seconds while Jason reads it, considers the pros and cons. Pro: guaranteed delicious jewish food. Con: it’s a charity gala. Pro: rankling rich people in tandem with Dr. Miller. Con: it’s still a charity gala which means publicity.

Then, of course, there’s Ephraim sitting across from him looking like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop and not get too excited because  _ the other shoe always drops _ . Jason’s intimately familiar with that feeling.

He picks up the invitation. Reads it again for effect. Shovels another bite of the most decadent hashbrowns known to man into his mouth and finger-spells,  _ Apoplectic?  _ He grins,  _ I can’t miss that. Does she prefer her brood to go around in coordinated suits or am I good going with whatever’s hanging in the back of my closet? _

Ephraim continues sipping his cocoa and weighs the option of eating non-Kosher food. The hashbrowns look yummy, against feeling bad at shul on Saturday and telling Rabbi Boehm he went outside the diet. But then, he thinks, he's a teenager and mom doesn't really enforce kashrut on him. She's pretty awesome about letting him eat what he wants when he isn't at home. His mom is the best mom and he'll fight anyone who says different.

Jason seems to acquiesce to the invite and Ephraim all but vibrates with glee,  _ You're good to wear whatever, as long as you look nice. Mom'd probably be okay if you showed up in jeans and a leather jacket. Grandmother'd probably burst a vein, but she doesn't control the foundation, mom does and it's apparently a 'sore spot _ ' -- how he manages to put air quotes around a sign is a feat in itself.

The last time Ephraim had seen his grandmother she'd swanned into their Manhattan apartment and tried to abscond with him to have a cochlear implant put in. Mom had punched her in the nose so hard grandmother had had to have surgery for a deviated septum.

Eva Mae Miller had issues having a 'defective' grandson. Ephraim had been ten, she'd moved to Gotham shortly thereafter. 

Honestly, Ephraim kind of looks forward to introducing Jason to grandmother. He grins, and it's all tooth.  _ You should ride along with me! Mom is going to be there making sure everything is set up because mom is a control freak like that, so it'll be a really awesome present. Mom probably likes riling grandmother up more than anyone else on the planet _ .

It’s impossible not to smile back at Ephraim— the kid’s more infectious than Ebola.  _ Sure, alright. We’ll make it a tag-team scandal _ .

And he’s tempted, sorely tempted, to turn up fresh from a fight for the shock value. But Jason was raised by Alfred Pennyworth, more or less, and Alfred radiates good taste like some kind of fashion reactor and Jason’s absorbed it against his will the way reactor technicians develop cancer— so he doesn’t have much of a choice. He turns up at Dr. Miller’s penthouse in a bespoke Italian suit with a tie that’s coordinated with his deep violet pocket square that’s chosen specifically to contrast the healing shades of green-yellow-red bruising around his left eye, and black pearl cufflinks. 

He might practice his publicity smile. Just once. Just to make sure it still works if for some godawful reason he needs it.

**Author's Note:**

> I know we've posted a lot in time for the New Year but y'all there's no better season for commenting on every ficlet!


End file.
